You can’t imagine how much I hate the loud, cheesy, obnoxiously sectarian chimes that ring in the cemetary near my house — they’re so loud that we have to close up all the windows in my house all summer long, unless we really want to listen to hymns every 15 minutes. They were briefly shut off for a while last year when someone cut the cables — really, I’m not the only one who hates them — and that ass, Ted Storck, who had them installed and lives nowhere near them had them repaired, and then wrote to accuse me of having done it.
That ass Storck is back in the local paper, after he was asked to TURN DOWN THE FUCKING NOISE. He was not happy at being told to stop banging on and poisoning the atmosphere around here.
I have good news and bad news.
The good news is for those who don’t like the chimes at Calvary and Summit cemeteries, and the bad news is for those who like the chimes.
Morris City Manager Blaine Hill, citing a city noise ordinance, asked that the volume of the chimes be reduced, and that has been done.
He said a student, who lives in Pine Hall on the UMM campus, complained about the chimes.
So he asked for residents of Pine Hall to let him know their thoughts on the chimes. He said nine responded, with seven saying “let them ring,” while two, including the original complainant, were against the chimes.
The minority won out, and Hill asked that the volume be reduced. Hill did say that during burials the volume may be raised to reach the burial area.
So now if you visit the cemeteries and don’t hear the chimes, you know why.
Merry Christmas.
I’ve heard a different version of his poll. The students were asked, two complained, and the other seven said “meh.” But really, what a mistake…to cite a sloppy poll in an argument with me (and all the other residents of this neighborhood — I haven’t heard any of them support the racket, and many are just as pissed as I am). So I’m going to fight back with his own tactics.
I have good news and bad news. The bad news is that turning down the volume was not adequate — I can still hear the beastly things. The good news is that I have created…an internet poll so you can express your opinion of loud Christian chimes.
Should the chimes in Morris be turned off permanently?
Yes 100%
No 0%
I don’t know 0%
I don’t expect those percentages to stay quite so perfect, since right now there’s only one vote there (mine), but go ahead, charge in.
Of course, you could also write to the Morris city council directly. Unless you’re a local resident, you should stick to politely explaining that as a matter of principle, the local noise ordinances ought to be impartially enforced, and special privileges not given to religious groups that want to harangue the populace at 15 minute intervals with religious music.
By the way, I also wrote a reply to Storck’s letter to the local newspaper — I just got notified that it’ll be published on Sunday. Here you go, you get a sneak peek:
I have good news and bad news.
The good news is that the city has finally taken a step to enforce its own noise ordinances and turn down the volume on Ted Storck’s unpleasant ‘gift’ to my neighborhood, the chimes at the Calvary and Summit cemeteries. It’s about time; the incessant racket, with hymns played every 15 minutes, has plagued us for years.
The bad news is that they’re still overly loud, overly frequent, and play all day long. The improvement is slight, and the content is still objectionable — as a non-Christian, I am not pleased to have religious music cheesily banged on at me every time I step outside the house. How would you feel if a mosque were installed in town, and five times a day a muezzin made an extremely amplified call to Muslim prayers? We have something similar, only it’s more like 60 times a day.
Mr Storck seems to take some stock in polls. I therefore put a poll on my website, asking “Should the chimes in Morris be turned off permanently?” In the first hour, it got 150 votes, 95% of them in the affirmative. I think my position wins.
But I’m willing to compromise. I think it’s perfectly reasonable to play the chimes during funerals (we all hope there won’t be too many of them!), and perhaps a few times a day on special holidays. I don’t object at all to the weekly church bells from the Catholic church, and would similarly have no problem with playing the chimes for occasional events. But the constant din has to end.
An acceptable alternative would be if every half hour, the chimes instead played from a selection of atheist music. Say, something from Slayer, Metallica, Immolation, Bad Religion, or Nine Inch Nails. That small portion of the community which does not object to the noise — they seem largely to live far away from the chimes — couldn’t possibly object to that, could they?
Happy Holidays.
Self-pharyngulation?
95% yes
5% no
20 votes
Bat-signal received, (first) vote placed. Writing letter to the the city council now, considering also writing to Mr. Storck personally if you think it would help.
Who’s the miscreant who voted yes? HUNT DOWN AND SHAME THE BELIEVER!!!1!
Only write if you’re going to be polite and make reasonable objections in principle to the ongoing noise harassment.
What would Ted say about music being played outside his property every 15 minutes?
To be fair, I’d like to hear what the chimes actually sound like, say from your house/yard. Also, what kind of schedule they’re on. I used to live within hearing distance of the carillon on Parliament Hill in Ottawa and currently live near to an Anglican church which occasionally has chimes playing hymns (like maybe 10 or 20 minutes, not in a solid block) a few times a week (and sometimes, it seems not at all for a couple of weeks). I kind of like it, but my mum finds it annoying–especially as, as she is probably correct to point out, non-Christian religious music or non-religious music of the same volume and length would probably have been complained about and disallowed.
Schedule seems to be 5am to 10pm, every 15 minutes.
As a member of my local planning and zoning board myself, all the polite letters I’d receive from out-of-towners in support of a local citizen’s complaints would just be round-filed as it’s what I’d hear during an official board meeting that matters. (I couldn’t care less how many lurkers support them in e-mail either.) I don’t think you’re doing yourself any favors locally by soliciting such support.
Whether or not one finds said chimes obnoxious, if they’re no louder than other typical outdoor noises in Morris, there will have to be other grounds for a complaint to likely prevail. IMO, the frequency is also an issue and I’d raise that point with the council. If a garbage truck ran by my house every 15 minutes, I’d certainly be annoyed because my dog would never stop barking at it.
Was that before or after you stole all those newspapers?
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, PZ…that’s a lot of chiming. Even the Irish Catholic cult up the street from me only blares their obnoxious noise a couple of times in the middle of the day…more so on holy days, of course.
I assume these “chimes” are actually recordings of chime-like instruments, which are probably synthesizers, played over lousy speakers. Those things are just awful. Christians can’t be honest about anything.
I would agree with David Wilford that a significant problem is the frequency, if that’s really how often they play. Also, how long do they play. The Irish cult’s noise usually only goes for a minute or less (I think it’s a doxology). In addition, if they really do start before 8am and continue after 5/6pm then very bad chimes. Even construction crews aren’t allowed to work outside those hours where I live.
I was once threatened with arrest because I had the audacity to play AD/DC’s “Hells Bells” very loudly from my home in response to a large gathering of people, in front of my house on a Saturday morning, singing “Jesus Loves Me” through a PA system. (My home was adjacent to the city park and apparently they assumed my front yard was public property).
Someone in the “Jesus Parade” called the police on me. When I refused to be appropriately contrite over my musical blasphemy, the officer threatened to arrest me.
When I questioned the group’s right to sing outside my house at a large (and amplified) volume, the officer replied, “They have a permit for it. You don’t.”
As I recall, it’s not even melodic chiming. It’s like somebody set a chimp with a hammer loose in the bell tower.
I… uh… I kinda like them.
Not that loud, and not every fifteen minutes, and not at five am. And usually my response to them is “Oh, shit, I’m late”.
If they played them at a reasonable level, and on the hour between, say, 9 am and 5pm I think they’d be ok. Or just at noon. At a level you can’t hear them from indoors. I’m one of the ‘no’ votes. Sorry.
But something should be done about them, yeah. I’d hate to live any closer to them than I do. I’m fortunate enough to only hear them when I go outside, and as a damn dirty smoker that’s fairly frequently.
All of the people I knew who have died have been cremated, but if I were to visit a cemetery to remember a loved one I would not want any music of any kind playing there. What kind of jerk decides he should be the audio engineer for an entire cemetery? I bet he’s also the kind of cow-plop who brings a boom box to a campground.
That makes me suspect it’s like change ringing, except without real bells. However, if they’re just doing a short sequence every fifteen minutes or so, then it’s not even that strictly speaking, but something that’s supposed to have roughly similar qualities as the “real” thing which takes much longer. I guess you can at least be glad that they aren’t running through a full peal continuously for hours or days or years at a time….
I’m kind of curious though. How many different pitches are there and how long does it last?
moarscienceplz — I’m with you. If I were visiting the cemetery where my father is buried, and where my mother will eventually be buried, I would want and need peace. Even if it was something pleasant to listen to otherwise, I would be pissed that someone imposed their boombox music on me.
consciousness razor — Like the nine hour peal in The Nine Tailors? I can imagine that real change ringing might be interesting for a little while but not all day. I couldn’t listen to the Grateful Dead or Dylan all day, mush less ringing bells.
Full-on hymns – this month it’s been “O Come O Come Emmanuel,” which is dumb because it’s a Good Friday hymn. There are a zillion happier, more appropriate songs if they HAVE to play them five minutes out of every fifteen all damn day. Or at least switch it up a little. =P
Maybe. I don’t know. Anything like this:
That’s why asked about the number of notes. You could tell just from the statistics how much it deviates from what I’m calling the “real” thing, while still basically giving you that vague old churchy feel that makes it feel dignified and traditional and so forth.
Well, you could use whatever sounds you want, not just bells (or simulated bells). Fill out a permutation, that’s all.
justsomeguy was describing it as if it were “random” (with the chimp set loose, etc.) because it wasn’t organized melodically or functionally, but that’s a mistake. Anyway, whatever is really going on with these bells, the difference has to do with compositional methods, not a particular “style” or a lack of one, whatever that would mean. The “real” thing is like an early version of minimalism or serialism, using different sorts of rules to do the dynamical work of making different things happen over time. But you definitely won’t get something like Grateful Dead or Dylan this way. Think of techno-something or dance-blah or ambient-whatever, if you’re going to reach for a popular analogy that you may or may not be interested in.
If I were a local I’d be awfully tempted to send the members of the city council one polite email every fifteen minutes between the hours of 5am and 10pm.
ButchKitties wrote:
Too easy to block. I’d suggest a telemarketing robo-dialler with a polite recorded message, delivered to all their phone numbers every fifteen minutes between those times.
consciousness razor — Yes, exactly, and I basically understood your point. Change ringing is something I could probably appreciate…for a little while…like any ambient music. I was introduced to it from The Nine Tailors, a Dorothy L. Sayers novel in which a nine hour change ringing plays a prominent role, as well as another change toward the end of the story. A BBC TV production features some short examples, and I believe I’ve heard others in untold movies. The story also involves a cipher which Lord Peter solves, a connection to statistical patterns. When I read the book years ago, I researched change ringing but didn’t find much info at the time (this was before Wikipedia and internets everywhere).
Obviously what PZ and his neighbors are dealing with is nothing like change ringing. If it’s anything like what I hear now and again from the Irish cult house up the street, it’s also not a real carillon. Rather it’s poorly recorded, poorly broadcast fake carillon racket full squelches and distortions meant to advertise the cult. They have no more right to disturb the peace of their neighbors than any other pagan cult…IMHO, of course.
Well, I agree with all of that. I’m probably a little oversensitive to the dominant assumption that functional harmony, or tonality or something like that, is the only respectable or reasonable or comprehensible kind of music there is. The chimes in question might well be Lutheran hymns or something anyway, and the commenter just doesn’t know how to listen. It’s still aggravating to me either way.
Here is what they should put on repeat 24/7/365, at let’s say 100dB at the property line. I will stand by that, because it is what everyone should do if they owned that cemetery and got special treatment. If they could get Pharrell to sing it instead of Weird Al, even better.
PZ Myers #7
Bloody hell! The muazzins are angels in comparison!
Harmony? What? You overestimate the musical quality of this gadget. Instead, think old Nintendo video game: notes plonk-plonk-plonked one after the other.
Isn’t there a comedy sketch about something similar?
Maybe they could just replace the chimes with a foghorn?
But, but, but … there’s only ever one note at a time, and they don’t even outline or imply a functional chord or something like that? I don’t believe that. I think you’ve got the wrong concept of “harmony” in mind. It doesn’t have to sound fantastic or be high-quality or something like that.
Where does he live? And do you know any mariachi bands that need work? I’m sure we could pass the hat. They don’t even have to be good mariachis.
The original links talk about hymns and patriotic songs.
It’s not change-ringing.
It’s also not Ives. Let alone Elliot Carter.
Jebus, every 15 min from 5 am to 10 pm. It reminds me of the Kurt Vonnegut story in a future dystopia where a guy hears random crashes of noise frequently to level off his above-average intelligence. You’ll all be smarter when the din ends.
“Ted Storck, who had them installed and lives nowhere near them” – “How would you feel if a mosque were installed in town, and five times a day a muezzin made an extremely amplified call to Muslim prayers?”
Hmmm… We wouldn’t want a mosque, though, would we? On the other hand, I wonder if a Satanic Temple could be set up somewhere near Mr. Storck?
I make that 20 minutes per hour for 17 hours a day. That’s 5 hours and 40 minutes per day of regularly scheduled time slots plus whatever else is done for Sundays and funerals, etc. Close to 40 hours a week.
If so, those are some very submissive people, to put up with that for years on end. I would not have thought humans were capable of that much torture without one person after another reaching the end of their respective ropes and doing damage to that infernal machine.
“I don’t expect those percentages to stay quite so perfect, since right now there’s only one vote there (mine), but go ahead, charge in.”
“Charge in”? You missed a wonderful opportunity for a pun, there.
I’m still just imagining this Nintendo-sequel plonk plonk plonk: I need to experience the full horror, lest you might just be exaggerating. Surely you can point us towards a lovely YouTube recording? We need data!
Sequel = esque, but sequel sort of works too.
@17, neuroturtle
No, it’s an advent hymn. Granted, this is aside the point, playing full on hymns every 15 minutes every day is irritating, regardless of the hymn in question.
PZ, I think your best bet would probably be to actually show up to a town council (or whatever analogue Morris has) meeting and voice your concerns in person. Probably be more effective than any number of random emails.
So… it’s like a Baby Jesus ice cream truck? Fuck’s sake, the actual ice cream truck is bad enough and isn’t even every 15 minutes.
I grew up in a small country town in the UK, and I used to love the bells (and still do when I visit there).
Of course I’m sure these noises aren’t anything like a good English peal, physically rung by burly campanologists with a penchant for permutations and followed by a long visit to the pub afterwards.
So at least I (selfishly—sorry) got some good news (or at least memories) out of it.
Here’s something else to consider…. The time period which the bells are playing do not even allow people a full 8 hours of sleep. And that’s assuming that they are in bed by 10 pm. For light sleepers, their lives would be dictated by the schedule of the bells and they still wouldn’t get enough sleep.
Perhaps take a recording to a town council meeting. Insist on your right to play it every 15 minutes during the meeting.
I don’t understand how even Christians would think these chimes were a good idea. If I pretend I still believe god, I’m still going to say that my need for peace and quiet in my home, particularly my need for sleep, trumps Christian hymns played by electronic chimes that have nothing to do with any kind of worship I ever heard of.
In addition, I’ve been in a lot of cemeteries in my life and they all shared a lot of common features, one of which was quiet. Which I always thought was considered a positive attribute of a cemetery. I’d be horrified having to listen to that crap if I went to pay my respects to a loved one. To have to listen to it during a burial? Ugh. This Storck guy is just weird.
Oh, and let me tell you, I’d have cut the wires when my children were infants. You did not want to be waking my baby when I was running on an hour of sleep here and there when I could catch a snooze.
A suggestion.
If you know where this guy lives, and can get someone in the neighborhood to cooperate…tit for tat.
Every time the chimes go off, so does a car alarm in his neighborhood. Every 15 minutes from 5 am to 10 pm? It’ll take 2 days for him to capitulate.
As regards change ringing, here is a link (actually a link to a link) of a reasonably quick quarter-peal.
http://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=90491
I lucked out with the chimes across the river from where I used to live – they’d chime off every hour (eight bells and all’s well…) which was useful for people without watches, and once or twice a week, they’d do an afternoon set of songs, which were almost never hymns. Once they started out with the first few bars of The Phantom Of The Opera, and segued into Pop Goes The Weasel. The only religious music that was played frequently was “Joy to the world”, because it’s really easy to play.
Also, they were about four kilometers away, across a kilometer wide river, which made them a lot easier to tolerate than if they’d been right around the corner.
Voted. Having personally visited Morris (good, grief — has it been seven years already?) and verified this acoustic horror for myself, I think my opinion counts as “informed”.
And it isn’t about the content — there’s lots of Christian music that I love. Many of the old hymns are nice music, given a decent arrangement (and reproduction technology). Then there’s all that glorious churchy music by Bach, Handel et al. But I want to hear it when *I* want to hear it, not when some sanctimonious goon thinks it will be good for my soul (in fact, I can think of few more effective ways of ruining a favorite piece for me than through badly-done repetition).
@Leslee #11:
Kudos!
A few years ago, some people on my street tried to elicit my cooperation in holding a street party to celebrate the Golden Jubilee of Brenda. They wanted to use my sound system; I replied that the only track it would be playing on that day would be just one of the only two acceptable versions of God Save The Queen.
I was all ready to buy a video projector just for the occasion too, but sadly they declined.
Obligatory… Angry man complaining about the PA system at Clonard Monastery in Belfast. The bit at 1.00 is priceless. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AHRgk0kJN4
..something I have never fully understood:
what is the purpose of including “I don’t know” as a poll option?
is there a design reason for doing that, a statistical one, or is it just inane?
Poll:
Including “I don’t know” in a poll is:
a) a purposeful design decision to avoid people voting in more positive categories
b) a statistical trick
c) completely useless
d) I don’t know
Must be for existentialist philosophers.
*Never my me, I just remember the Sartre novel I read to a blind student for his philosophy class. I just remember thinking about the “hero”, just a make a decision and live with it.*
Gack, correction #50:
It wouldn’t matter if they were playing music I like on a good sound system (e.g., concert quality). The frequency and volume described by Dr. Myers is not acceptable. Frankly, I’m annoyed by the hourly chiming of the Catholic church/parochial school near my house. And I only hear that because I frequently pass near the church while walking my dogs when they make their horrible racket at 6 p.m. If I lived in the adjacent apartment complex I would have disabled the damn things long ago. This is just another example of the special privileges afforded religion. I can’t imagine any secular business being allowed to do the same thing.
Parrotfish #13:
I suppose if it were only a few minutes starting at noon, at a not too intrusive level, that would be bearable/acceptable to most people. Possibly even Dr. Myers.
But considering the situation as described, I agree with his “Should the chimes in Morris be turned off permanently?”
They should, because they have obviously worn out their welcome. The “permanently” could perhaps be reconsidered in a few years or so if the cemetery agrees not to become an overbearing nuisance again.
I would have perhaps worded the letter to the local paper a bit differently though. It seems truthful as it is but it does not seem designed to attract the support of the maximum number of sympathisers for this particular cause.
Perhaps if the chimes were actual bells played by a real, live human being it might be okay. There is a clock tower (a proper campanile) on the UC Berkeley campus. It chimes the hour (old joke there…classes are run on Campanile Standard Time). There are short concerts played on it most weekdays at noon for 15 minutes or so. Real bells, really played.
I just read PZ’s letter to the Morris paper.
Good thing they don’t allow comments.
Wait.
They publish the paper on Sunday?
Heathens.
Hey, PZ!
Morris has a Mexican restaurant!
I’ll be those here in the upper North Shore of Illinois are more authentic. Based on the clientele as I drive by.
Nerd
Go to the Morris newspaper website.
It looks authentic.
Plus, small town weekly newspapers are a pure joy to read.
Ah, but does the local hispanic/mexican population eat there?
Mi Mexico just opened on Monday — we had dinner there on Tuesday, along with half the population of Stevens County. It was good and inexpensive — Mary and I both ate for a total of $18.
We’ll see if the local hispanic population goes. Unfortunately, many of them are employed at the local dairy, swine, and poultry operations at very low wages, so there may be an economic barrier there.
Have you tried contacting the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency?